The Striking Price

When All the World's a Fiscal Cliff

When the stock market is range-bound, and the conversational framework grows repetitive, a line from a Violent Femmes song always comes to mind: "Third verse, same as the first."

Here, at the end of the third-quarter earnings season, market action is about the same as it was in the first. Nothing has really changed, and nothing will change until it's clear the U.S. economy won't go over the fiscal cliff.